TRUMP TRIES COMPROMISE
Gambit fails, however, as Dems deem each point unacceptable.
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Saturday that he would extend deportation protections for undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
In casting the proposal as a compromise, Trump sought to shift pressure to Democrats to end the government shutdown.
The president, delivering a 13-minute address from the White House, said he would extend the legal status of those facing deportation and support bipartisan legislation that would allow about 740,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, known as Dreamers, to keep their work permits and be protected from deportation for three more years if they are revoked.
“That is our plan, Trump said. “Straightforward, fair, reasonable and common sense with lots of compromise,” The proposal, Trump said, was designed to “break the logjam and provide Congress with a path forward.”
But he reiterated his demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a border barrier, and Representative Nancy Pelosi said ahead of his remarks that she considered his proposal a “non-starter,” in part because it offered no permanent pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.
It was the second time the president addressed the nation about the immigration crisis during the government shutdown.
This time, Trump made the speech standing behind a podium, under an oil portrait of President George Washington, a setting aides said he prefers to the seated, direct-to-camera Oval Office address he delivered earlier this month when he highlighted a growing “security crisis” at the border.
He attempted to weave his new concessions to Democrats in with a hard-line appeal to his base, opening his remarks with the same kinds of warnings of exploited children and rape that he said confront undocumented immigrants at the border.
But over all, the remarks stood in contrast to that primetime address, in which the president attempted to reframe the debate by outlining examples of grisly violence at the border. That address, which Mr. Trump was reluctant to make, failed to turn public opinion to his side. This time, Trump struck a more inclusive tone, calling his proposal a “common-sense compromise both parties should embrace” and a “compassionate response.”
He even appeared to play down the wall at the center of the stand-off with Democrats. “This is not a 2,000mile concrete structure from sea to sea,” he said. “These are steel barriers in high priority locations. Much of the border is already protected by natural barriers such as mountains and water.”